Silent Hill: Order & Chaos
by TotalObelisk
Summary: Naomi Queen has been slowly spiralling into depression ever since her family's murder almost a year ago and has since been wandering from place to place trying to forget her grief. Her trip eventually takes her to Silent Hill...
1. Hell's Station

_Once upon a time a great and powerful cult worshipped a great and powerful god, a god that they believed would bring about their paradise. The cult believed that they could deliver that god unto the world and they tried…And failed. The last of the cult has now died and faded into history, but their dark legacy remains and the dark powers they unwittingly unleashed survive to this day. It is that power that haunts the town in which it was born. That instead of creating the paradise the cult wished for creates a living hell for those it deems necessary. It waits, whispering to those with the darkest of hearts and memories and calls them away…To the town of Silent Hill…_

The sudden voice over the station loudspeaker jerked Naomi back from her thoughts, announcing the next train at platform 3 was just arriving.

"…And will be stopping at Pleasant River, Toluca Station and Central Brahms." The announcement finished.

Naomi muttered a quick apology to the bored looking man in the ticket booth and took her ticket from him, making her way quickly out of the lobby and onto the platforms. She darted rapidly up the stairs and across the bridge connecting to platform 3 just as the train pulled in and the departing passengers filed out. Naomi was round faced and spotty around the nose and cheeks. After a year of neglect, her shoulder length auburn hair was unkempt and messy and the fringe hung over her hazel eyes shielding them from view and, by the looks of them, her lack of sleep. She wore a plain white shirt underneath a sleeveless orange jumper and green jacket, a tattered pair of jeans and black converse trainers. A small leather bag was strapped around her waist and several brightly coloured buttons adorner the shoulders of her outfit, contrasting greatly to her dark mood. A rucksack hung over her back and she dragged a heavy looking suitcase behind her, thankful for the tiny wheels at the corners that saved her having to slowly wear away the base from dragging for there was no way she would be capable of lifting the object by herself.

"_I still remember,"_ she thought _"It's been about a year, and I'm still not over it. I'm not sure I ever will be."_

She sighed and pulled a photograph from her leather bag, the image upon it showing a family of four; A tall, well groomed man with dark hair and the same roundish features as Naomi's, a woman much shorter than her husband, with long hair that matched the same shade as Naomi's, a small boy who could barely have been seven years old perched on his mother's lap, mopped brown hair and a childish grin on his face and finally a teenage Naomi sitting between her parents, her hair longer and much neater without the walled fringed half covering her eyes and a bright beaming smile on her face. Without being told, it would be almost impossible to connect the girl in the photograph to the one staring at it.

"_Nobody else will understand,"_ her thoughts continued _"They've never had to come home to find their family murdered by a man who was never caught. They don't even try to."_

She arrived on the platform just as the last of the boarding passengers where entering the cabin and quietly joined the queue, deaf to the endless chatter going on around her. The cabin was fairly crowded but she found a seat near the back, attempting to heft her large suitcase onto the overhead shelf. A hand reached out and grabbed the end of it, assisting her in pushing it over her head. Naomi looked around, spotting a bright eyed man with neat black hair and contrastingly bright blue eyes.

"Thanks," she muttered, averting her gaze as she sat down.

The man sat down next to her after half-heartedly chucking his own luggage into the overhead racks. Naomi didn't look up, instead fishing a Rubrik's cube from the satchel around her waist and began fiddling with it.

"So, where're you heading?" The man asked brightly.

"Brahms," Naomi answered without looking up.

"I see," the man apparently hadn't registered Naomi's desire not to strike a conversation but continued as though she where talking animatedly to him "I'm stopping by Toluca Lake myself. I'm dropping by to visit a friend up from hospital in town, Silent Hill."

Naomi made a slight 'hmph' as acknowledgment, not entirely interested in his story.

"_Silent Hill,"_ she repeated in her head _"Why does that sound so familiar?"_

"Yeah, Wesk's been having a bit of a rough time lately;" the man said, ignoring Naomi's disinterest once more "My name's Allen by the way, Allen Crow."

Naomi looked up briefly before returning to her puzzle.

"Naomi," she replied.

Allen grinned once more as the train began to pull away.

"Wesk's only a nickname really," he continued, under the impressive Naomi was interested "His real name's Wesker but me and most other people just call him Wesk, suits him more."

Naomi made another uninterested noise in response and finished her fiddling. Allen glanced down and his eyebrows raised in surprise when he saw the once jumbled and confusing colours where now in neat groups on each side just as Naomi twisted the final corner into place.

"Nice," he commented "I can never get the hang of those things."

Naomi shrugged and stowed it away again. With nothing to occupy her she turned to stare out of the window as the urban landscape slowly changed to a view of trees and hills as they left the town far behind them. Naomi leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes and folding her arms across her chest.

"Going to sleep?" Allen asked.

"Yeah," Naomi grunted in reply.

"Okay, I'll wake you up when we reach Toluca Station then," Allen said "Wouldn't want to miss your stop."

Naomi gave another short murmur in response and turned her head away from Allen, slowly becoming deaf to the chatter around her and aware only of the soft rumble as the train sped along the tracks, the hypnotic rhythm of it quickly sending her to sleep.

Naomi dreamed of walking down a long, dark corridor, holding a flashlight to light up the shadows. She heard footsteps and sped up, catching sight of movement as the tail end of a tattered trench coat fled quickly out of her field of light and the sole of the owner's boot as they fled. She called out to them and continued running, coming to a pair of large red double doors, the paint looked old and peeling and the surrounding walls where worn with age. She looked around, seeing no other means of escape and opened the door, walking through into what appeared a large room with steel grated floors and chains hanging from the walls, looking up she saw the ceiling was obscured by darkness as the walls rose up to a height far higher than her flashlight could reach. A cold breeze filed through and Naomi shivered, not with cold but with something she couldn't quite place. It was as though she had been on edge for a good few moments and this place only served to spark her nerves even more. She looked around, feeling unnerved by the place when she heard the door slam behind her. She ran back quickly, attempting to open the door but it wouldn't budge. She leapt back in surprise as what looked like blood red roots grew from the handle and consumed the door, obscuring it behind a wall of bloody plants. Naomi backed away, her heart pounding as she heard a soft scraping behind her coming closer and closer as well as the sound of heavy chains clanking and being dragged across the metal mesh of a floor. She turned around slowly and saw a hand shoot out of the darkness, a set of long and rusted knives fused to its fingers, or rather driven painfully into them so that they were split up to the second knuckle, thin steel wires extending from them to dig into the hands flesh. The hand reached forwards, a rusted black cuff sealed around its scarred wrist with a heavy black chain extending off into the darkness. Naomi pressed herself against the wall, her flashlight slipping from her hand as the gruesome claw drew closer, opening and closing as it grasped at her, the knives threatening to tear her open with every inch it drew nearer.

She woke with a start as the nightmare ended, feeling sweat on her face as she sat up and rubbed her eyes.

"Jeez, what a dream," she muttered, rubbing her eyes absently.

She then paused and looked out of the window, seeing nothing but a thick fog that clouded her vision after barely a few feet. Finding nothing unusual in this, Naomi closed her eyes again with the intention of going back to sleep when she noticed that the train wasn't moving and that the sounds the wheels rolling over the tracks and the idle chatter of the passengers were gone, in fact Naomi couldn't hear a thing aside from her own breathing. Opening her eyes again she cast her gaze around the cabin, seeing nothing but a deserted train, there were no sign of any of the other passengers, or their luggage or even any of the staff.

"Did I oversleep while the train came to the last stop?" She wondered aloud.

She shook this thought from her mind. Perhaps the train had stopped due to the fog and everybody else had left to wait in the station. Naomi stood up, walking over to the doors and looking outside, making out a platform through the window. She calmly pressed the 'open' button beside them and stood back as the doors shuddered and opened a tiny crack before jamming.

"Huh?"

Taken slightly aback, Naomi pushed the button again with the same result.

"Is it jammed?" She muttered.

She looked up and down the cabin before moving back to check the carriage behind, looking through the small square window of the door the separated the two compartments, but aside from noticing that the second door covering the cabin's entrance was open she saw nothing. She shrugged and moved back to her seat when a sudden noise pierced her ears and she jumped back from surprise, the sound of static spitting out of something. She looked around before realizing that the sound was coming from her own breast pocket. She paused, reaching in to retrieve her phone which she identified as the source of the noise.

"What the…?" She paused, seeing the screen was flickering like a broken television set "Why's it making that noise?"

She spent a good couple of moments fiddling with the buttons with no result before she dropped the phone in surprise as the noise suddenly became more intense. Then another noise, barely audible over the static, sounded from outside the cabin she had just checked for life. Naomi looked around at the door leading to the next carriage over; a sliding sound could be heard, like something heavy being dragged across the floor, accompanied by a soft hissing sound, getting slowly louder as whatever it was drew closer. Naomi moved closer to try and see through the window, seeing nothing on the other side.

"Hello?" She whispered cautiously.

All of a sudden a hand slammed against the window, causing Naomi to jump back in fright and back away. Rather than attempt to open the door however, the hand slid around on the window's surface, spreading out its fingers to try and cover as much space as possible. Confused by the odd behaviour Naomi moved closer, hearing her own heart as it beat against her chest.

"H-hello?" She reluctantly called again through the door.

The smell of burning plastic slowly dawned on her and she noticed that the hissing sound was now even closer than before. She then noticed that the hand seemed to be spreading something across the window pane, but she couldn't make out what it was or why anybody would do such a thing. The static from her phone was still blaring out obnoxiously and the hissing was growing louder.

"H-hey, do you know what's going on here?" She asked through the door, but whoever was behind it ignored her as the soft hissing suddenly grew louder.

It was then that she realized where the hissing was coming from as she noticed that the window was apparently melting and the strange slime that the hand was spreading was leaking through, running down the door and melting through the plastic coating. All of a sudden the hand burst through the small window, groping outwards as Naomi leapt back out of reach. The hand was unlike anything she'd ever seen; the skin was a sickly brown-grey colour and was scaled and slimy, like a slug's. The same acid slime was dripping from it and Naomi noticed the underside was smooth and shiny. Resisting the urge to puke Naomi backed away to the other side of the cabin on her backside as the hand gave up its groping and proceeded to spread its acid slime over the rest of the door as it slowly began to melt away. As the hole grew large enough, the creature began to pull itself through and Naomi saw its face was almost non-existent except for sunken flesh where the eyes would be and the traces of what looked like a mouth opened in a scream. The thing looked human for the most part, but the same slug-like skin appeared to cover its entire body and its legs appeared fused together as it had to pull itself through the hole it made and then drag itself across the floor towards her, all the while spreading the burning slime across the floor.

Now in utter panic Naomi scrambled to her feet and turned around, running to the door leading outside of the carriage and attempting to open it but finding it still wouldn't budge. She tried the other side with the same luck as the creature slowly drew closer. Desperate, she opened the door leading to the next carriage and to her surprise found it slid open with little resistance and she dashed through just as the creature reached within arm's length of her. She quickly closed the door behind her, opening the second door and rushing through into the next cabin before the creature could get through.

Naomi raced to the other end of the carriage, finding it in a similar state to the one she'd just left and proceeded to try the doors at either side with no luck.

"What the hell is going on here?" She muttered in panic, glancing about wildly for a means of escape but finding none.

She heard the creature beginning to make its way into the cabin and proceeded to try the end door, bursting through it into the driver's cabin and quickly shutting it behind her. She could still hear the creature burning its way through as the hiss of the melting glass and plastic from its acid grew louder and the smell of burning met her nose. Naomi looked around, trying to find something to defend herself with or some way out before the creature got to her. Looking around she spied the window and noticed something written hastily over it, apparently in blood.

'_I am two sides of the same coin, Light and Dark, Law and Anarchy, Order and Chaos.'_

The next window over had a bloody arrow pointing down to a small box resting on the controls, a strange padlock fastened around it. A sudden noise made her jump and she looked around to see the slug creature had made its way to the door and was beginning to melt through it like before. Seeing no other option, Naomi quickly turned her attention to the box, examining the lock on it which had a hole through the middle. Still panicking, Naomi looked around, spotting two coins on the floor just in front of the door. Looking up briefly to see the hand on the window she quickly ducked down and grabbed them, just as the hand burst through. Naomi quickly leapt back as the hand groped around where her head had just been a second before and proceeded to continue breaking in. Naomi examined the coins she'd picked up, noticing that they were oddly thin for coins their size and seeing that one had_ LLO_ carved into it and the other had _DAC_ while the other sides where both blank.

"Two sides of the same coin," she muttered, repeating the message.

Desperately she picked up the box, jamming the coins into the lock, so that the carved sides faced outwards at either end. To her surprise it worked and the lock opened with a soft click. Naomi reached into the box, hoping to find a weapon of some sort within but instead pulling out a small deep blue stone with what looked like an upside-down Y carved into it on either side.

The sound of the creature pulling itself through the hole it had made alerted her once again to its presence and she whirled around, dropping the stone and pressing herself against the controls, trying to stay out of reach as the thing drew nearer. As the creature drew nearer, however, a sound blared in the distance, Naomi recognizing it as an air raid siren, though the mystery of its presence was lost on her due to the mere terror of her situation. She found her gaze suddenly drawn to the stone on the floor as its colour slowly changed from deep blue to blood red as though the colour within it where mist. As she watched this, Naomi began to feel drowsy and felt herself falling to the floor as the world in front of her became a blur. Red mixed with brown seeped into her vision as the foggy image of the Slug Man drew closer to her, reaching out to grab her before another foggy image shot out behind it, bearing the vague image of a hand that plunged itself into the creature, causing it to emit a blood chilling shriek no human being should be capable of creating as it was pulled backwards and Naomi passed out, her world turning black in an instant.

Naomi awoke, sitting up to find herself on the floor of the driver's cabin with no signs of the creature that had pursued her moments ago. She stood up slowly and looked out of the train window, finding her vision still obscured by a thick fog and not being able to see more than a few feet of track ahead. Looking out to the right side of the train, she noticed the tip of a platform through the fog and moved to open the cabin door leading outside, only to find it firmly closed.

"This is either a really weird dream or a really uncreative nightmare," she muttered, finding the door leading back into the train open.

She paused, looking down to find the stone, now blue once more, hanging by a string around her neck.

"How did that get there?" She muttered, reaching up to untie it but not finding anything close to a knot that she could undo, and the string wasn't wide enough to lift over her head.

Giving up she walked back through the carriage, ending up back where she had started and finding her phone still lying on the seat. She picked it up, noticing the screen was back to normal and finding a message in the inbox. She opened it, finding a message that read: 'Welcome to Silent Hill.'


	2. The Devil's Playground

Naomi stared at the message in confusion for a moment and glanced up and down the train, but seeing nobody else there. She shrugged and closed the message, placing the phone into her breast pocket and reaching up to pull down her suitcase and rucksack, the only luggage left behind in the deserted train. She opened her suitcase, revealing an assortment of clothes, cooking utensils and other such objects.

"Like I'm gonna need all that," she muttered, reaching into her rucksack and picking up a flashlight.

She turned to leave and paused, reaching inside her suitcase again and taking out a kitchen knife just in case any more of those…things where lurking around outside. She stowed the knife in her belt and made her way to one of the exit doors, finding it still unable to open. Heaving a sigh Naomi backed off, sitting down on her seat and gazing around.

"This can't get any worse," she muttered.

She shook her head in defeat, gazing down at her feet and suddenly leaping up in surprise as she spotted a rather large slug on the floor. She backed away quickly, seeing more of them on the floor as well.

"Oh jeez," she breathed, shivering slightly "Oh Christ..."

However the slugs weren't moving and seemed to be dead. This calmed Naomi down a small bit while making the sight even more unpleasant at the same time; needless to say the sight of them still unnerved her immensely. However she did notice a black smear on the floor she hadn't seen before, the slimy corpses lining the edges of it like grotesque air strip lights, leading through the door to the next cabin, the one that the Slug Man creature had come in through. Hesitantly, Naomi stepped over the slugs and opened the ruined door, walking in to find it just as deserted as the rest of the train.

"Guess I shouldn't expect anything else," she muttered.

Looking down, she noticed a small key lying on one of the seats with a small note attached to it. Naomi picked it up, examining the note which read: 'Station Key'

Naomi frowned and looked about.

"Well, given the circumstances I don't think anybody will mind if I borrow it," she muttered, stowing the key in the bag around her waist.

Looking down at the floor she noticed the trail carried on and then veered to the left suddenly, ending at a large hole in the side of the train. Naomi walked over to it and bent down to examine the hole. It was big enough to fit through, barely, and led straight onto the platform.

"_Finally, a way out_," Naomi thought as she crawled through it, hopping onto the platform and standing up straight.

The thick fog still hung in the air with no signs of dissipating any time soon, however Naomi could make out vaguely the track stretching off into the distance, pondering whether to follow it to get out.

"Hello?" She called out "Is there anybody here? Please?"

She received no answer. Heaving a sigh, she wandered along the platform, coming to a sign at the end.

_Toluca Lake station._

"Toluca Lake?" Naomi repeated, remembering her rather one sided conversation with Allen beforehand.

"Silent Hill," she muttered "Why does that keep cropping up?"

She paused, trying to see through the fog. All she could see past the platform was the track, surrounded by thick foliage on one side and a steep drop on the other which she didn't fancy going down. Frowning, Naomi turned around, moving back down the platform to try and find her way into the station. As she approached, she heard a muffled scraping noise in the distance and paused, wondering if there was actually anybody there or just another monster. Cautiously she made her way forwards, coming to a set of green double doors that looked old and worn, the paint was peeling and the windows where so grimy she could barely even see through them, the walls around them where much of the same, with old posters peeling off the walls and who knows how many years of grime and muck covering them. Naomi tried the doors but found they were locked.

"God damn it," she hissed "Is there any place here that isn't…"

She paused, remembering the key she'd found and fished it out of her bag, placing it into the lock and turning it. A satisfying 'click' sounded and the door swung open.

"Better," Naomi muttered, walking through into the station.

Luckily there was no fog in here, but the lights where off and the grime covering the windows meant they weren't letting a lot of light in.

"Good thing I brought my flashlight," Naomi thought, taking it out and moving it around to examine the abandoned building as she descended a flight of worn steps into the station.

It was a pretty standard station, benches and ticket booths dotted the walls and an old sign above a worn door read 'shop' in peeling black letters.

"Creepy," Naomi muttered "Doesn't look like anybody's been here for…"

The sound of static made her jump and she groped for her phone again, pulling it out and identifying it as the source of the noise once again as she saw the flickering screen.

"What the crap is wrong with this…"

She stopped, hearing another sound, the sounds of scraping metal similar to what she'd heard on the platform only this time followed by a loud thud of heavy metal on concrete. Naomi turned about, waving her flashlight around to try and find the source of the noise.

"Hello?" She called, more quietly this time apparently under the impression that if it was a monster it wouldn't hear her but if it was a person it would.

The sounds drew slowly closer and by now Naomi was starting to panic again.

"_Stay calm_," she thought to herself "_There's plenty of space to run, if it's another one of those weird slug men you can outrun it_."

Though judging by the sounds it made this was no Slug Man, and as the creature slowly came into the field of light cast by Naomi's flashlight and she let out a gasp of horror. It was vastly different than the previous creature; it looked like a human except parts of its body where stitched on in a Frankenstein fashion the skin tones varying wildly with a red patch of flesh sewn around where its heart would be. But probably the most disturbing thing about it was that its head, hands and feet had been severed and replaced with what looked like giant rusted nails imbedded into the stumps, which were still bleeding, causing blood to run down its body and drip on the floor behind it. As the creature drew closer Naomi noticed that the source of the scraping noise was another nail, larger than the ones imbedded in the creature's body, attached to a short chain which was screwed into the creature's ankle, causing it to limp and drag its leg behind it. Countless other, smaller nails where imbedded around the creatures body, streams of blood dripping from each one. Naomi opened her mouth but found she was speechless with fear as the thing advanced. As it got within reach of her Naomi suddenly found her will to move returning and threw herself to one side as the thing swung one of its arms down, missing her as she dodged to the side. Naomi crawled to her feet as the thing turned around and began advancing again, pulling the knife out from her belt and holding it out in front of her.

"S-stay away from me," she said in a vain attempt to threaten the monster "I'm serious, stay back."

The creature ignored the threat, however, and continued forwards, swinging its arm in a club-like manner once again and Naomi dodged to the side. The thing continued its assault, its movements slow but undoubtedly heavy as it cracked the ground with a single blow. Naomi soon found herself up against a wall and ducked just in time as the monster threw another swing at her, its nailed hand bursting through the plaster like a sheet of paper. However the creature's arm seemed to be stuck as it tried to tug it free with little success. Seeing her opportunity, Naomi scrambled to her feet and ran, finding a door at the other end of the room that looked like an exit. She tried to open it but found it was locked.

"Oh geez, come on," she moaned, slamming her fists against the door.

She fished around in her bag, trying to find the key once again as the monster finally wrenched its arm free of the wall, turning again the advance towards her.

"Come on, come on, come on," Naomi muttered frantically, finally finding it and attempting to fit it into the lock, which proved difficult in her panicked state.

The creature drew nearer, raising its arm to strike just as Naomi pushed the key into the lock and quickly turned it, almost falling through the door and running out the other side into a deserted car park.

Having made her escape Naomi ran, still hearing the ominous scraping caused by the creature's shackle as it tried to pursue her, but was far too slow to keep up and was soon lost within the fog as the static from her phone died. Naomi reached a stretch of road and collapsed to her knees upon it, gasping for breath from the sudden sprint and panic. She looked over her shoulder but couldn't see any signs of the creature following her. She then noticed a billboard by the side of the road, just next to where it turned off to the station's car park. She walked up to it, turning off her flashlight and placing it in her satchel as she approached as there was little need for it out here. The billboard showed a map, dominated on the right hand side by Toluca Lake with two halves of a town set around the edge to the north and south, connected by a long road which snaked around the edge of the lake and bridged across it as it cut between the two halves of the town. Naomi examined the top of the billboard, finding the word 'Silent Hill' written across the top.

"Silent Hill again," Naomi muttered, getting used to the word now so that is sounded less like a name and more like a word of its own meaning.

She eventually found the station on the map, finding it to be just near a fork where the road split and carried on away from the lake instead, finding herself to be a short ways along the fork which she identified as Nathan Avenue with the north turn of the fork marked as West Sandford St.

"There's gotta be someone in that town, maybe even someone who can tell me what the hell is going on here," she muttered, looking down the road for any signs of life.

Finding none she began to walk along the road, pausing for a second before taking out her phone and taking a picture of the map, including a closer view of the southern and northern parts of the town so that she could see the details better, and storing it in her phone for use later and continued along the road.

The trip was uneventful but the thick fog left her field of vision too small to make out how far she had come and how far she had yet to go and almost certainly hid any more of those hideous creatures within it. Once or twice Naomi could have sworn that the darker patches of the swirling fog was the shadow of another Slug Man or perhaps one of those Nail Headed things coming towards her, but was proven only to be the result of paranoia. Naomi took several deep breaths to try and calm herself, reassuring herself that perhaps the station was the only place where those monsters where. The idea dawned on her that they must have been the reason that the train was deserted, so why had nobody bothered to alert her to the danger, unless of course it was a situation of 'every man for himself'. It still seemed like an unusually speedy and clean evacuation as there was no discarded luggage anywhere; in fact it had been fairly spotless for a derelict station. And there was still the question of where the hell these things had come from.

"_At the very least_," Naomi thought to herself "_Things can't get much weirder that they are already_."

Within a few short steps, this statement was to be proven completely and utterly wrong.

"What the hell?" Naomi could barely contain her disbelief as she drew closer to the anomaly before her.

At first she caught glimpses of rubble through the fog, then thick cracks in the asphalt. It wasn't until she drew closer, and crossed over onto the concrete of a bridge littered with similar such marks that she saw, to her horror, that the whole thing had apparently collapsed. Naomi stopped, staring into an endless white abyss before her hardly daring to believe what she was seeing. She must have stood there for a good five minutes staring into it, unable to comprehend just what she was seeing. Finally, she took a slow step backwards, her head shaking in disbelief.

"This isn't happening," she muttered "This isn't happening, no way."

She faltered, hearing the faint traces of static once again. She reached for her phone, pulling it out to see that, once again, it was going haywire.

"God damn it," she muttered under her breath, tapping the screen as if that would help "What's wrong with this thing?"

The faint sound of metal scraping against stone cut her off, coming closer at the same rate the static grew louder.

"_You're….You're joking_,"

Naomi turned around, her face slowly turning pale as she saw that the Nail Head monster had indeed followed and caught up with her. Its dismembered body came into view through the mist as it limped towards her, the large Nail weighing it down carving a soft line in the asphalt behind it. Naomi made to run past it when she noticed that it wasn't just the one Nail Head coming towards her as the first one paused but the scraping still continued and a second Nail Head came into view through the fog. Naomi panicked and retreated a few steps before suddenly remembering that there was a sheer drop into an icy cold lake behind her and stopped in her tracks, looking over her shoulder to stare back at the abyss behind her.

The monsters seemed to have stopped and were merely gazing at her; or at least they seemed to be given their lack of actual heads, let alone facial features. Naomi took a few short breaths, staring between the two creatures that now stood side by side. As far as Naomi could tell she had all of 2 options, jump off the edge into a cold and watery grave or let these two club the life out of her with the most unsanitary tools possible. Not a pleasant way to go either way.

Naomi reached for her knife, pulling it out and gripping it tightly in one hand. She took another minute to remind her feet of what they were supposed to do and took off towards the two monsters. Seemingly caught by surprise, the Nail Heads didn't react until Naomi plunged the knife into the chest of the one closest to her, screwing her eyes up tight and gritting her teeth as she felt the metal sink into the creature's flesh. She jerked the weapon out roughly, blood spraying from the creature and up her arm as she barged past the dazed creature. The Nail Head lashed out, but Naomi was already passed it and the creature's attack landed instead on its partner, knocking it back and causing it to lose balance on its makeshift legs. The two monsters flailed about, one on the floor and unable to get to its feet and the other in pain but unable to do anything to stem the blood gushing from it, but Naomi didn't look back to check, she just carried on running as fast as she could, barely even noticing when she took a right turn when the road split onto Sandford St. All she cared about was putting as much distance between herself and the two creatures behind her as possible.

Even if the creatures were slow, Naomi still ran at full pelt and her progress was only halted when something soft and heavy collided with her foot and she fell forward, landing on her elbow as the knife flew out of her hand. She gave a brief cry of pain, cradling her bruised arm as she crawled off whatever it was she'd fallen over. After a few short breaths Naomi got onto her knees, letting go of her bruised elbow and looking behind her at what she'd fallen over, letting out yet another in a long series of screams as she saw she'd just fallen over a human body.

Naomi scuttled away without bothering to stand up, staring at the dead form on the road in front of her. Once her panic had subsided, she began to notice something about the corpse, mainly that the blood spilling from it and onto the road was still slick and shiny, some of it having rubbed off onto her jeans and sleeves when she fell over it, meaning it was still fresh. She moved closer to the body nervously as though it would suddenly jump up at any moment, wondering if this poor soul had been caught by the gracefully slow monsters that seemed to have taken over the station. But closer inspection proved that this person had not been killed by the heavy beating of giant nails or by acid, even though his face was horribly mangled and unrecognizable there where several fresh stab wounds over his back and, judging by the blood pooled underneath him, his front as well. Upon realizing this, Naomi retreated once more, this time scrambling to her feet and turning to run in the other direction but barely making it more than a few feet before she inevitable dropped to her knees again as they turned to jelly with fear and panic. She then noticed something on the road by her hand, a worn crumpled piece of paper, damp with blood and with a single faded message splashed across it as though in a hurry.

'_The Ripper is coming and he's coming for you'_

This message sent a fresh chill down Naomi's spine and she somehow found herself able to stand again, finding her knife lying beside the note and hastily picking it up as she began to put as much distance as she could between herself and the corpse behind her.


	3. Risen From Ashes

Naomi stopped a short way down the road to catch her breath, leaning on her knees as she did so, her knife still in her hands. She had no idea how far along the road she'd come and due to the fog was unable to see far enough ahead of her or make out any possible landmarks that would indicate how far along she was. She reached into her breast pocket, pulling out her phone and bringing up the picture she'd taken of the map from the station car park, zooming in on the road she was standing on. It was a long road that curved slightly, running along the edge of Toluca Lake, passing by Old Silent Hill and eventually stopping just outside of the Silent Hill resort area. Naomi began moving again, keeping an eye on the map as though a 'you are here' sign would suddenly pop up to tell her how far she'd come. All of a sudden however, the screen began to flicker and static began to spit out from it again, almost causing Naomi to drop the phone in panic.

She quickly looked behind her, expecting to hear the tell-tail scraping of a Nail Head approaching her through the mist or the unnerving hiss of acid sinking into the asphalt as a Slug Man crawled towards her. However a loud clang of metal on metal alerted her to the fact that whatever was coming was in front of her. She looked ahead once more, hearing somebody yell in the distance, a human yell. There was someone else here after all.

Naomi put her phone away again, gripping her knife tightly as she ran to aid whoever was in trouble. After only a few moments, she caught sight of two figures through the fog, one was yet another Nail Head, this one seeming bruised and worn with several of its smaller nails having been knocked out, leaving gaping wounds in their wake. The second was a man, hard to see through the fog, but he had messy blond hair and a tan coloured jacket and appeared to be trying to fight the creature off with a rusted steel pipe. Naomi hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do as the creature took a mighty swing at the man, knocking his weapon from his grip and causing him to yell in pain. He retreated back a few steps as the creature advanced, dragging its chained foot behind it as it went.

Naomi quickly un-rooted herself and ran forwards, gripping the knife with both hands and plunging it into the creatures back. The creature flailed in surprise, letting out an inhuman scream which sounded more like Styrofoam being rubbed together, only more disturbing. It began to turn around and swung at Naomi, causing her to release the knife and leap back in surprise. The Nail Head turned its attention to her, advancing slowly while blood leaked from its back where the knife was still stuck. Horror struck, Naomi found herself unable to move as the creature took another step towards her, raising its bloodied and bruised arm to take its revenge. Naomi let out a shriek, shutting her eyes tight and raising her arms above her head in a vain attempt to defend herself.

After a moment the creature let out another scream of pain accompanied by the sound of flesh being penetrated repeatedly. Naomi looked up again, seeing the man had gotten up off his ass, had taken Naomi's knife from within the creature and proceeded to stab it repeatedly in the back, more out of panic than an attempt to help her it seemed judging by the wild look of fear in his eyes. Scratches appeared up his knuckles and the back of his hand as they scraped past the many nails embedded in the creature's body. After a few more stabs, he tossed the knife aside and grappled the monster from behind, reaching up and grabbing the large nail coming out of its head and began to twist and pulled. The Nail Head's screams became more and more desperate and it flailed about to try and throw him off to no avail. After about a minute of struggling, the man pulled the nail out with a sickening pop and a fresh wave of blood erupted from the creature's neck as it stopped struggling and fell forwards. Naomi took a few rapid steps back to avoid the blood still spraying from the creature's neck as it hit the floor, unable to take her eyes away from the horrid sight.

"Is…Is it dead?" She asked after a moment of silence.

The man let out a long sigh of relief and nodded, looking down at the creature with a strange expression, as though her where used to the sight of them. He looked up at Naomi and she could now see him more clearly than before; his blond hair was short but very messy and had bits of blood and other such things stuck to it, his face was long and thin but looked gaunt and worn and there where heavy bags under his eyes and a very messy five-o'clock shadow on his chin. He wore a tan jacket with a belt round the waist that was undone and left to hand by the sides as well as a dark shirt underneath and grey combat trousers, that where both stained with blood, and heavy brown boots. Although he looked as though her could barely be in his late twenties or early thirties, the expression on his face seemed ancient as though he were barely a day away from sixty.

He reached down to pick up Naomi's knife, now soaked in blood, and handed it back to her. Naomi took the weapon hesitantly; the sight of the man using it with such vigour earlier had unsettled her significantly.

"You o…Okay?" The guy asked, his voice sounding worn and unused.

"Y-yeah," Naomi muttered, wiping the blood from her knife with a cloth she retrieved from her bag "What…What was that thing?"

"Hell if I…If I know," the man replied with a significant stutter, looking down at the Nail Head "They're all over the…The place l-lately."

He looked back at Naomi, his eyes showing a dull blue colour that showed barely any traces of any life.

"What's going on here?" Naomi asked, still wary of the man "The train was deserted and all these monsters everywhere…"

The man shook his head, cutting her off.

"Haven't t-the foggiest fucking clue," he said "I just wo-wo-woke up and there was all this f-fog and…" He seemed to have trouble stringing the words together "I-I dunno, it's like this p-place is…Alive."

"Alive?"

The man nodded.

"And n-not just that," he said "It's like it can s-see into you and mess with your head. Sh-show you e-e-everything you d-don't want to see."

Naomi gave a slight shiver in responder, her mind flashing back to the slug creature on the train and the strange dream she'd had.

"I've h-had all I can take from this place," the man continued "I-I was hoping to get t-to southvale, s-s-see if there's anybody there that can h-help."

Naomi looked back down the road and shook her head.

"The bridge collapsed," she said "There's no way across."

The man gave her a blank stare for a moment and then kicked the Nail Head corpse: "Fuck!" He yelled at the top of his voice "I knew it, every o-other exit outta this place is l-like that."

Naomi's face fell slightly at this remark.

"Wait you mean we're trapped here?" She said, aghast.

"F-fucking trapped, yeah," the man replied in a defeated voice "I told ya, it's like th-this place is alive or s-something."

At this, Naomi looked even more worried than before and her grip on the knife tightened.

"How…How long have you been here?" She asked.

"A week,"

Naomi's face changed from worry to absolute horror in a matter of seconds.

"A week!" She repeated almost at a shriek.

The man nodded grimly and looked back up at her.

"W-well…At least there's s-somebody else here n-now," he said "Thought…Thought I'd be trapped her alone for-forever."

This didn't quite make Naomi feel better, after all spending a week in this place alone would do a huge number on a person's sanity and judging from his behaviour he wasn't the most level headed person around and not the sort of person Naomi was willing to spend the rest of eternity with.

"Haven't you tried phoning the police or something?" Naomi asked.

The man jumped all of a sudden, causing Naomi to jump as well. However the wild look in the man's eyes quickly vanished and he gave her a slightly irritated glare.

"Y-you think I didn't already think of that?" He replied "Do…Do you honestly think it'd work here?"

"Well…" Naomi paused, remembering she'd received an anonymous message earlier but hadn't actually tried sending one.

She pulled out her phone again, the static having died with the monster still at their feet. Checking the screen she saw that the phone wasn't picking up a signal.

"Sorry," she replied, putting the phone away "I guess I didn't really think it through."

The man looked away from her and shrugged, stepping over the corpse and walking down the road. Naomi followed reluctantly, not wishing to be left alone in this place, even if her company was as paranoid and crazed as the man in front of her. The man glanced over his shoulder at her.

"You're following me?"

"You're just gonna leave me behind with these things all over the place?" Naomi replied, not bothering to mention how much the man unnerved her, anything was better than the hideous creatures behind them.

The man shrugged and looked away again, but didn't make any attempt to protest.

"Chris," he said gruffly.

"Huh?"

"Chris Guard, that's…my name," he said, seeming oddly calm now that the monster was far behind them "You?"

"Naomi,"

Chris gave a gruff noise in reply and continued walking.

"Where are you going anyway?" Naomi asked "Come to think of it, where the hell have you been for a week?"

"Had a r-room at a hotel," Chris replied "Doesn't look like the monsters go in there, so it's safe. Only really come out to try and find f-food or look for a way out."

"I see," Naomi replied quietly.

"How'd you end up here a-anyway?" Chris asked.

"I was on a train going to Brahms," Naomi explained "I was gonna stay with a friend for a couple of weeks."

"For a holiday?" Chris asked.

"Not exactly," Naomi replied, not making eye contact with him "I just….I'd rather not stay at home anymore."

Chris gave her an odd look.

"Why?" He asked.

Naomi paused not really keen to divulge such information, let alone to a complete (and possibly insane) stranger. However, he was the only person she'd seen alive in this place, not to mention she felt like getting it off her chest.

"My…My family was murdered…About a year ago," she said, quietly.

At this, Chris jumped once more, although not as much as last time.

"W-who by?" He asked quickly.

Naomi shook her head.

"No idea," she replied "Whoever did it wasn't caught."

"I…I see," Chris seemed to relax slightly "Well, I-I'm sorry, I guess."

Naomi gave a slight murmur in reply, suddenly finding herself not willing to carry on the conversation. The two wandered in silence for the moment, the road they were walking along seeming just as endless as before and Naomi found herself wondering how Chris knew where they were going. Her question was answered when Chris came to a sudden stop, turning to face something at the side of the road.

"Here," he said.

Naomi looked around, not sure what Chris was looking at until she saw the huge shadow just visible through the fog. As they moved closer the building revealed itself to be an elaborate hotel, a set of short marble steps led up to a pair of polished wooden doors, a gravel path led up to it and there where wide areas of grass on either side with several picnic tables just visible through the fog. Naomi could make out a sign leading to the car park which she guessed was set at the side of the building.

"Lakeview Hotel," Chris explained, walking up the path to the doors.

Naomi followed him up, feeling stunned by the contrast this place offered to the decayed and aged station she had been in previously, this building looked brand new. Naomi followed Chris inside into a grand lobby with a set of wide stairs set right in front of them leading to a balcony which ringed the edge of the room with four doors set at each end and another pair of large double doors just at the head of the stairs. Naomi could make out the reception just left of the stairs and a pair of doors at the end of the room either side as well as another door at the right of the room. Set in the middle of the room was a wooden cabinet with a small model inside it of the very building they were in, or at least that's what Naomi assumed upon seeing it but when she took another look she noticed it was different, older somehow and the plaque underneath read:

_Original Lakeview hotel_

_Destroyed in a fire in 1992_

"What a shame," Naomi muttered, noting it looked like a very pretty building, and the older look had a strange appeal to her.

"R-room's upstairs," Chris said, jerking Naomi out of her thoughts.

She quickly caught up with him as he ascended the staircase to the second floor balcony, turning right and going through the right hand door into rather small corridor; a set of small stairs sat to their right while to their left was what looked like another reception desk, the sign 'baggage' stamped across the top, just next to this was another corridor but Chris didn't take this one, instead crossing the distance to another door at the other end of the room. The pair emerged into a wider corridor with doors lining either side, each one with a number starting at 210 and ending at 201. Chris crossed to the nearest room, 209, and went in. Naomi followed him inside, emerging into a smallish room with a small single bed set in the middle and a large square window at the far wall. Another door and a square block of wall told her that the bathroom stood to her right. Wood panelling covered the wall about halfway up while the rest was decorated with dull red wallpaper.

Chris took a seat on the bed, reached into a chest of drawers next to the bed and pulling out a handgun.

"Can't believe I left th-this thing behind," he muttered to himself.

Naomi cast a wary glance at the weapon before moving past, taking a seat at a small table in the far corner of the room. Chris reached under the bed; drawing out a large bottle of something Naomi was sure was alcohol.

"You're gonna drink at a time like this?" She asked.

"Hey," Chris replied, taking a swig "O-only reason I haven't put a bullet in my brain is cause'a this. Only think t-that keeps me going."

Naomi shrugged and looked away, noticing a large assortment of puzzle pieces dotted around the table. Suddenly curious, she picked them up and began fitting them together. Chris looked up after a moment to see what she was doing.

"You r-really think it's really time for that?" He asked.

"Keeps my mind of things," Naomi replied without looking up "If you're gonna drink yourself stupid then I'm going to finish this."

"F-fair enough," Chris muttered.

Naomi looked back to her puzzle and suddenly she noticed something; some of the pieces had a red smear on them. Some only parts but others almost completely. A feeling of dread rose within Naomi as she contemplated what this red mark might be but nonetheless she picked out the pieces with red smears and began piecing them together, separate from the original puzzle. Chris looked up and noticed her change in expression, walking over to where she sat to watch her progress. He watched as the red smears began to form words, some kind of message.

Naomi paused, noticing that at least one word had become fully legible and the sight of it made her hesitate. She's seen the exact same word only minutes ago, written in the exact same way.

"Ripper," she repeated.

"Ripper?" Chris looked down at her.

Naomi gave a brief not: "I found it on another note on my way here," she explained "It said, 'the Ripper is coming, and he's…He's coming for…'" She didn't bother to finish.

"T-that could'a just b-been anything," Chris replied "I t-told you, this place can m-mess with your head."

Naomi ignored him, unconvinced and continued to assemble the rest of the message. After only a few short minutes she was done and the two of them stared at the result.

'_You cannot run._

_You cannot hide._

_The darkness is coming._

_And the Ripper hides inside'_


	4. A Dead Man's Tale

"W-well Shit," Chris said.

Naomi pushed the message away quickly, reacting as though it where something as gruesome as a dead mouse that the cat had dragged in. Just then, a loud crash sounded from outside the room.

"What was that?" Naomi asked, jumping at the noise.

"H-hell if I know," Chris replied, drawing his handgun and moving towards the door.

Naomi followed reluctantly, pulling out her knife just in case. Chris sniffed briefly, his face contorting in disgust.

"Fuck, what's that smell?" He asked.

Naomi froze; the sound of something heavy being dragged across the carpet was coming from outside and her phone began to spit static once more.

"Oh jeez," she breathed, trying to control her nerves.

Chris gave her an odd look.

"You okay?" He asked.

Naomi shook her head, her eyes staring at the door the whole time as the sound got closer.

"Fuck this," Chris muttered.

He flung the door open and brought his gun round, training it on the Slug Man's head. The creature gave a low moan as it pulled itself towards him, its acidic trail leaving a path of melting carpet behind it. Naomi ran out to join Chris and found herself paralyzed as she stared at the creature's blank face and slimy skin and felt a shiver run down her spine. Chris wasted no time and opened fire, hitting the creature square in the face, the impact making a dull smack and punching a tiny hole in the Slug Man's scaled flesh, a trail of dark blood leaked out and ran down its face but the monster didn't slow down.

"Fuck you!" Chris yelled, firing again "Leave…Me…The…Fuck…Alone!" He snarled, spitting out each word with every bullet he fired.

The creature screamed an inhuman scream as the bullets tore holes through its head and shoulders and it stopped, writhing for a second before its head fell to the ground and it stopped moving.

"Thought that bastard was n-never gonna die," Chris muttered.

"Chris!" Naomi yelled, suddenly finding her voice just a little too late.

A second Slug Man, this one coming from behind, lunged at Chris, its movement defying all laws of anatomy as its torso almost bent double at the hip and it reached forwards as Chris turned around to try and shoot it, wrapping its slimy arms around Chris' right arm. Chris swore loudly as the acid made short work of his jacket sleeve and the smell of burning flesh filled the corridor. Naomi watched in horror as Chris tried to throw the creature off with no luck. She swallowed her nerves and gripped her knife in both hands making a dash forward and plunging the weapon into the creature's head. The creature screamed again releasing Chris and rearing backwards, waving its arms in pain as blood trailed down its formless face. Naomi leaped back immediately, letting go of her weapon and leaving it in the creature's head, causing it to scream and writhe even more. Chris, now free, brought his weapon round, wincing at the pain in his arm and firing three shots straight into the creature's head, letting out an agonized yell from the pain in his arm as he fired each shot. The Slug Man gave one last scream before it toppled forwards, lying motionless on the carpet.

Chris looked around to see Naomi standing just in the doorframe, shivering.

"You o-okay?" He asked, loading a new clip into his gun.

Naomi managed to nod, unable to take her eyes of the Slug Man's corpse. The acid slime was still eating into the carpet around it but seemed to be getting less effective by the moment. Chris reached forwards, pulling the knife from the creature's corpse and revealing the ruined blade, eaten away by acid.

"Fuck," Chris spat angrily, kicking the first Slug Man's corpse in the head "After a whole fucking week, _now_ they decided to pay me a visit."

Naomi finally took her eyes off the dead monster on the floor, somehow managing not to empty her lunch onto the carpet next to it. Her phone was still sending out static, albeit faint but there nonetheless.

"We…We have to get out of here," she said.

"You think there're more of them?" Chris asked.

Naomi nodded.

"Please," She added.

Another noise sounded from upstairs, sounding like something heavy being dropped.

"Guess you're right," he replied "C'mon then."

They ran back through the double doors across the corridor, the noise from Naomi's phone increasing as, sure enough, there was another Slug Man waiting for them in the next corridor. A dark patch on the ceiling above it. It began to crawl towards them, its slime beginning to spread behind it.

"Where the fuck are these things coming from?" Chris snarled, firing three consecutive shots at the creature, the recoil causing him more pain from his wounded arm.

The Slug Man dropped down dead but the static was still there. Naomi looked behind them and her jaw dropped as she saw the ceiling beginning to sag slightly, turning brown before a sack of something dropped from it, leaving nothing but a damp ceiling in its wake as the sack split open and dissolved, revealing another Slug Man.

"Guess the answers that," Chris muttered.

He practically shouldered the lobby doors open, grabbing Naomi's arm to drag her through as she seemed frozen at the sight of the creature.

"The fuck is w-wrong with you?" He asked as they ran down the stairs "You afraid of slugs or something?"

Naomi didn't reply and merely followed Chris across the lobby to the double doors that led outside, all the time looking back to see if the creature was following them. It wasn't until they were out of the hotel and back on the road that Chris stopped running, finally allowing Naomi to collapse to the floor and attempt to catch her breath, her phone finally going silent.

"Aagh, fuck!" Chris yelled, grabbing his arm in pain.

Naomi looked up, seeing that the sleeve of Chris' jacket had been burnt straight through and the flesh underneath was an angry red and peeling.

"Whatever was in that shit it stings," Chris cringed.

"Are…Are you okay?" Naomi asked.

"Think it hit something important," Chris muttered "Must've t-torn something when I fired my gun cause this thing wrecks like a m-motherfucker."

Naomi got to her feet, taking a closer look at the wound.

"Is there a hospital around here?" She asked.

"B-better be," Chris winced "I h-haven't had t-the chance to really go sightseeing."

Naomi took out her phone, bringing up the pictures she'd taken of the map.

"There's a hospital in Central Silent Hill," She said, noticing a red building marked with a white cross "Come on."

"H-hey," Chris said "The hell's gotten into you all of a sudden?"

Naomi paused and shrugged: "Well…I just wouldn't want you to get hurt, is all," she said.

Chris gave her an odd look but began to follow her nonetheless.

The pair walked in silence through the fog, Chris still cradling his wounded arm. After a few minutes of walking, Naomi's phone came to life with static once again.

"W-why does it keep doing that?" Chris asked.

"I have no idea," Naomi replied, pulling it out "But I swear every time it does…"

She was cut off mid-sentence when she heard the sound of metal scraping across the pavement to their right.

"Oh jeez,"

"Oh, bloody perfect," Chris muttered.

Without a moment's hesitation the two ran off before the Nail Head could reach them, the noise from Naomi's phone dying after a few minutes.

"So…That thing knows w-when there's a monster around?" Chris asked.

"Guess so," Naomi replied.

"Fuck," Chris muttered "Wish I had something like that."

Naomi nodded in reply as she tried to see ahead of them through the fog. They passed a sign for 'Lakeside Amusement Park' and a while later what looked like a pair of garages just visible through the fog. All the time Chris cradling his wounded arm and darting his gaze left and right in case of any more monsters hiding in the fog.

"Chris," Naomi began "How exactly did you end up here?"

Chris gave her an odd look and shrugged: "Came here for a weekend off," he said "Day I was supposed to leave the whole place was covered in f-fog and everyone was gone. Probably got out before all this shit went down."

Naomi gave a small murmur in reply as they crossed a bridge, this one mercifully intact.

"All I can say is t-thank god these monsters are so fucking s-slow," he continued "O-otherwise I'd be dead meat."

Naomi shrugged in response, remembering the butchered corpse on her way in.

"_There's got to be more than just the monsters around here_," she thought.

Once they were across the bridge they came across a sign pointing them down Riverside Drive. Naomi checked the map pictures on her phone; although she couldn't make out the name it was the first street after the bridge and led straight to the hospital.

"Looks like we're almost there," she said.

Her phone screen began to flicker almost as soon as she said this and static spewed from it once again, causing her to jump. Chris whirled around as he heard the sound of scraping across the road, a shadow beginning to emerge from the fog, limping towards them.

"Motherfucker," Chris snarled, bringing his gun up again and firing twice.

The creature let out another inhuman shriek and stumbled backwards but didn't fall over, Chris however grabbed his wounded arm again, swearing as the recoil from his gun sent a fresh wave of pain through it and blood began to leak down his arm. Without another word the pair turned down Riverside Drive, running away from the Nail Head as fast as they could, not bothering to stop until they were out of breath.

"Where…Where the f-fuck are we now?" Chris asked.

Naomi looked around, noticing a large building to their right surrounded by a bricked wall.

"I think we're here," Naomi replied, still trying to catch her breath.

The pair moved around the building, coming to a set of open gates which gave way into a courtyard, a pair of double doors sat to their immediate right, the words 'Alchemilla Hospital' written above them in red letters, a large red cross sitting next to them as though they needed any more confirmation of their location.

"Finally," Chris muttered "Let's just get some goddamn b-bandages then get the fuck out."

Naomi looked over at him for a brief moment before walking up to the doors. All of a sudden her phone began to emit static again and she whirled around, seeing the form of two Nail Heads coming towards them through the fog. Without a word she quickly opened the doors and the pair ran inside, slamming them shut behind them.

"You think they can get in?" Naomi asked.

"Do they l-look like they can use a door handle t-to you?" Chris replied.

Truthfully, that wasn't what concerned Naomi, but considering that her phone had gone silent once again she doubted it mattered.

She turned around, seeing that they'd emerged into a reception area with a long wood desk taking up most of the wall to their left, a set of benches and a vending machine sat to their right. Marble tiles lined the centre of the floor and the walls were decorated with ugly green wallpaper halfway up before being replaced by blank white, the two colours separated by a wooden beam.

"What a shithole," Chris commented "No wonder I didn't come here."

Naomi ignored him and moved over to the desk, noting that there was a notepad and a pen sitting on top of it and the odd loose paper but nothing else. However her eyes fell on a map, lying just next to the notepad, which detailed the hospital's floor plan. She picked it up, thinking it might be of some use.

"Doesn't look like there's anybody here," she said.

"No shit," Chris replied, still with one hand on his arm.

The room turned off into a corridor just past reception and the pair followed it, coming into a fair sized corridor with two doors, one at the end and another to their left about halfway down. Naomi tried the nearest door but found it didn't open.

"What's up?" Chris asked.

"The locks broken," Naomi shrugged "I can't open the door."

"Bugger," Chris muttered.

Naomi moved to the far end of the corridor, finding that this door did open and they emerged into yet another corridor, this one steering them left with a set of stairs just across from them.

"This is getting us n-nowhere," Chris muttered.

Naomi took the map out, examining it and noticing a room marked 'medicine room' just through the next set of doors. She quickly crossed the hall and attempted to open the door leading to the next corridor, but found that it too was broken.

"Great," Chris muttered "Now what?"

Naomi checked the map again, frowning. There was another entrance to the hospital which took them straight into the next corridor, but it meant going across the courtyard where the two Nail Heads where waiting for them.

"Maybe we can go upstairs and try to elevator," she suggested.

Chris shrugged.

"Nothing else to do,"

They took the stairs, emerging into a small room with another set of stairs leading up and a pair of doors just next to them, leading into the second floor. Naomi opened the doors cautiously, keeping an eye out to see if there where anymore monsters in this area, thankfully they weren't and the two stepped out into the corridor. A pair of doors lined the walls down the corridor to their left and another sat right across from them after the corridor turned a corner. Another door sat just before the turn and checking the map Naomi saw it marked as 'Nurse Centre'. She tried the doors across from them, finding them yet again to be inaccessible. Chris sighed and shook his head, seeming unsurprised. Naomi paused, remembering that the doors on the train hadn't worked either and it wasn't until she'd found a hole in the side that she'd found a way out. Thinking it over, it almost seemed like this place had turned into a twisted sort of maze. She checked the map, seeing that the room next to them led into the next corridor too and she tried the door, finding it open. The pair stepped into the Nurse Centre. It was a small room with a pair of green couches at either side and a desk at the end, just opposite the door. Naomi crossed to the desk, finding some notes strewn about its surface. She picked them up, skim reading them.

'_Wesker isn't responding well to treatment._

_He keeps babbling on about how 'it's all_

_fake, only the nightmare is real'. This_

_isn't something we can solve easily, the_

_doctors have suggested moving him_

_to Cedar Grove. At least they know_

_how to deal with this stuff.'_

"Wesker?" Naomi read the name out-loud, wondering where she'd heard it before.

"You quite done?" Chris asked.

"S-sorry," Naomi said quickly, putting the papers back.

Chris shook his head and opened the next door, the pair emerging into the next corridor. There was a pair of double doors just in front of them, the words 'operation prep room' written above them.

"Think there might be some stuff in there?" Chris asked.

"Worth it I guess," Naomi replied.

Chris opened the doors and the pair walked in, finding themselves in a completely bare room. Chris walked in, almost slipping on something on the floor.

"Fuck," he muttered, looking down.

Naomi looked down and saw a piece of paper under Chris' foot and she picked it up, noticing it was a page from a diary:

"_I've been seeing them again; the others can't take it anymore and said they're taking me to a hospital."_

Naomi folded the paper up, putting it in her pocket and looking around the rest of the room, but seeing that it was completely bare except for another pair of doors which led to the 'operation room'. However a frustrated rattle as Chris tried to open it revealed that these doors where broken as well. Chris shook his head and the two of them walked back out into the corridor.

"Well that w-was a waste of time," Chris muttered angrily.

Naomi didn't reply as the two moved down the corridor, passing the 'intensive care unit' and walking straight to the doors at the end marked 'elevator'. The doors opened and led them into another room with a large elevator sitting right next to them. Naomi pressed the button to call the elevator and it lit up.

"At least something works," She muttered as she heard the elevator grind into life.

The doors opened with a satisfying 'ding'. The pair walked in and Naomi pressed the button for the first floor. The doors rattled closed and the pair felt themselves descending slowly.

"Is the whole place like this?" Naomi asked.

"Yeah," Chris grunted "I kind of stopped bothering after the first couple of days, figured this place was just deserted at first but…" He paused, a grim expression coming across his face.

"Chris?"

"Nothing," Chris muttered, shaking his head.

The elevator stopped moving and the pair emerged, making their way down the corridor to the medicine room which was mercifully open. Cabinets and cub-boards lined the walls with assortments of medical equipment strewn about the counter and floors. Naomi opened the nearest cabinet, extracting a box of bandages and disinfecting alcohol from them. Another room sat just across from them, which according to the map led to the examination room.

"Come on," Naomi said, Chris following her through the doors.

They emerged into a large room with a desk in one corner and about three beds dotted around the room. A large window led to a view of the foggy courtyard, the Nail Heads not visible through the fog. Chris sat down on one of the beds, seemingly glad to finally come to a rest.

"This p-place is so m-many kinds of fucked up," he said "I can't believe I…Ahhg!"

He yelled in pain as Naomi applied a cotton bud covering in disinfectant to his wound.

"What the fuck!" He yelled.

"Hold still," Naomi said, grabbing his arm to make sure he couldn't move it away. Chris gritted his teeth as Naomi continued, finally wrapping the bandages around his upper arm tightly, though not enough to cut off his blood flow. After she was done she walked back a few steps as Chris flexed his arm, somewhat impressed.

"Where the hell did you learn that?" He asked.

Naomi looked away, frowning.

"My mum used to be a doctor," she explained.

"A doctor, huh?" Chris gave an amused chuckle "Wish I'd known her."

Naomi gave him a disapproving stare before sitting down at the desk, a sudden sorrowful expression coming over her face.

"H-hey," Chris said, getting to his feet "I was just joking, okay?"

Naomi shook her head.

"It's not that," she said "It's just, I…I'd rather not have to remember my…"

Before she could finish the stone around her neck sprang to life. Naomi had completely forgotten about it up until now but suddenly noticed it had suddenly grown warm and its colour was beginning to change again, slowly becoming an angry crimson.

"What the hell?" Chris gazed at the stone before his body froze, a fearful expression coming across his head as the sound of air raid sirens filled the room.

Naomi looked up, seeing the colour drain from Chris' face.

"Chris?" Naomi asked.

"Not again," Chris said, starting to panic "Not again!"

He took off, barging through the doors leading to the office and vanishing from sight.

"Chris!" Naomi called after him, but froze, her eyes widening as she saw just what he was running from.

Naomi looked down in horror as something spread out from underneath her, staining the floor a vivid red. It spread across the floor and up the walls, covering the beds and transforming the metal frames into rusted pipes and staining the bed sheets a sickening blood red. Naomi looked up at the window to see the fog vanishing, replaced instead by pitched blackness. But whatever was happening wasn't done there, from the corners of the room blood red vines began to sprout crawling up the walls and ceiling and branching off each other, blood red leaves growing out of them their edges jagged. Naomi backed up against the desk but leapt off it almost immediately as the felt movement from beneath her. She turned around and saw the vines where wrapping around the desk, engulfing it in a mass of blood coloured weed, the same happening to the beds till the room was transformed into a greenhouse from hell. Naomi stared at the scene before her, a fresh mix of horror and disbelief crawling through her.

"What…What the crap is going on here?" she managed to say, panic more than evident in her voice.


	5. Doll Surprise

Naomi stood, frozen to the spot as the room's bizarre transformation finally ceased, leaving her in a room of blood coloured walls, rusted beds and grotesque roots crawling across the walls and ceiling which appeared to still be moving ever so slightly. Having had just about all she could take from this room she ran to the nearest door, forgetting that it was broken the first time she'd tried it. But to her surprise the door swung open easily and she ran through it, thankful to be out of the nightmare that had consumed the room, only to walk right into another one. As soon as she stepped outside Naomi's foot came down, not on a marble decorated floor, but upon a rusted steel grate. She jumped in surprise, backing up against the wall only to find her hands groping at the same bloodied roots that covered the walls in the room she'd just left. She leapt off the wall quickly and glanced around, finding the corridor had undergone the same vivid transformation as the examination room.

Naomi took a moment to take it all in, walking slowly down the corridor, her head shaking in disbelief. Monsters and collapsed bridges were bad enough, but now she had to contend with this as well? It was already too much for her to take in. She reached the reception desk and looked around; remembering that Chris had ran through the door into the office just behind it.

"Chris," she called out, somewhat weakly "Are you still here?"

She moved to the doors, not caring about the monsters waiting outside for her, but found that they were covered with vines and no amount of pulling or pushing could get them free.

"Goddamnit," she muttered, backing to the reception desk.

She felt something cold and metal brush up against her hand and she jumped, turning around to see Chris' handgun lying on the desk, two clips of ammo lying beside it and one already loaded. Naomi looked around, trying to see if its owner was still about.

"Chris?" She called again, but got no answer.

Hesitantly, she picked up the handgun and the bullets, stowing them in her satchel and keeping the weapon to hand. Naomi had never used a gun in her life but something told her that if this town could transform to hell and back then the monsters lurking in here would be far worse than the ones from before.

She moved round into the corridor and immediately went to the door at the end, finding that it too was open. No sooner had she gone through than her phone came to life again, making her jump after the prolonged silence. She immediately raised the gun in front of her but could barely see a thing through the pitch blackness. She clumsily reached into her satchel, rummaging around while keeping the gun ahead of her as she pulled out her flashlight and turned it on, illuminating the hallway. At the end of the corridor Naomi noticed a human form, not mutilated like the Nail Heads or crawling on the floor like the Slug Men, this one stood upright. Naomi heard herself give a brief sigh of relief before she realized that the person's clothes where grimy and blood-stained, its skin was pale and clammy with numerous scars visible along its expose arms and in one hand it clutched what looked like a surgical knife. Naomi froze in place, her relief quickly turning to terror as the creature turned around, no doubt attracted by her flashlight. As it turned, Naomi got a better look at the thing; its hair was black and cropped but messy and it wore a set of grimy doctor's scrubs which were low cut, revealing a pale, scarred cleavage. Now a mixture of horrified and embarrassed, Naomi began to back away until she was right up against the door, but not daring to turn away from the monster to open it. The nurse creature began to move closer and Naomi got a better look at its face, seeing that its mouth was apparently fused shut, the skin around it looked old and scarred, but the most notable thing was that its eyes where covered by what looked like strips of old, decaying flesh.

Naomi suppressed the urge to scream as the monster moved closer, its movements slow and clunky, high-heeled shoes proving to be the most inappropriate footwear on metal grating. The creature stumbled forwards, raising its arm with the knife aimed forwards as it slowly moved closer, its other arm hanging limp as if broken. Naomi panicked and switched off her flashlight, not wishing to look at the gruesome sight a moment longer. As soon as she did so the nurse stopped in its tracks, apparently frozen in its bizarre pose, its head lolling to one side, one arm down by its side and the other raised while its legs where splayed at the most uncomfortable angle possible making the sight even more bizarre and unnerving. Naomi took a few short breaths, staring at the creature that was now just visible through the darkness. Slowly, she moved forwards, pressing herself against the wall and grimacing as she brushed up against the roots covering it as she sidled past it. The nurse twitched and Naomi jumped, running straight past it and almost colliding with the next door.

She looked back at the nurse creature, seeing it still frozen in place aside from the occasional twitch. She took a few steps down the rest of the hall, breaking into a run as soon as the creature vanished behind the corner, only to come to a halt when she saw a set of metal bars stood near the hall, cutting her off from the exit and elevator, more blood coloured vines where wrapped around them and the metal was rusted and stained with dried blood. She stopped, placing the gun in her jacket pocket and pulling out the hospital map, checking the corridor to see if the nurse had moved before turning her flashlight on to read the map. The door just ahead was blocked off so it looked like her only means of escape was down the steps ahead of her into the basement, which was not a promising prospect.

She took a second to catch her breath, looking down the corridor to see if the nurse was following her, before taking a single slow step towards the stairs and stopping once more. After a brief pause she swallowed and practically ran down the steps, colliding with the wall at the bottom before continuing down, coming to a halt in a small corridor at the bottom. She leant against the wall, shining her flashlight down to hall to reveal it was empty, causing her to let out a sigh of relief. She wandered down it, checking the doors either side to find that they wouldn't open either and the door marked 'morgue' was covered with the same hellish ivy as upstairs. She backed away from the door and turned around, noticing an elevator behind her that made her almost sigh with relief. If it was working she'd be able get back up to the first floor and out of this crazy hospital.

She pressed the button to call the elevator, almost jumping when it lit up and the sound of the elevator descending sounded from above her. It shuddered to a stop and the doors opened, spreading light into the otherwise darkened hall at the same time static began to spew from Naomi's phone. She leapt back instinctively as another nurse practically lunged at her from within the elevator, its rusted knife just missing her as she pressed up against the wall. The creature quickly recovered from it awkward position and made to attack Naomi again. In her panic, Naomi fished in her pocket for the handgun, dropping her flashlight in the process. She brought the gun up just as the nurse raised its weapon to strike and fired.

Naomi had never used a gun before in her life and certainly never had any intention of using one, so her expertise with such a weapon was amateur. However as the nurse came almost face to face with her it was almost impossible to miss and the bullet tore a hole through the creature's fleshy blindfold and rocketed out of the other side, causing a spray of blood out of the back of the creatures head. It stumbled backwards, lost its footing and toppled over, writhing on the floor. Naomi flinched at the sight and trained the gun on the creature's head, firing two more shots. The creature let out a shrill scream as both bullets punctured its pale, scarred face and its movements slowed and finally stopped.

Naomi took a few deep breaths, keeping the weapon aimed at the creature's body in case it got up again, but it didn't. Cautiously, she put the gun back in her pocket and bent down to pick up her flashlight, keeping her eyes on the corpse the whole time before running into the elevator once she'd retrieved her flashlight. Unlike the rest of the building, the elevator seemed untouched by the corrosion around it and was well lit, allowing Naomi to turn off her flashlight without any need to worry. The doors closed behind her and she turned around to push the button for the first floor, only to find that it wasn't there. Not like the button had been broken off or anything but as though the button was never there to begin with, although the buttons for the second and third floors where working fine.

Naomi heaved a depressed sigh and pressed the button for the second floor, feeling the elevator lurch before it began to slowly ascend. While she waited she leaned against the back of the elevator, trying to make sense of what had happened. She remembered what Chris had said earlier about the town being alive.

"Was this what he meant?" She muttered to herself "Or am I just going crazy?"

She shook her head. She might be emotionally detached from society but she certainly wasn't crazy. At least, she hoped she wasn't.

She pulled the map out again and perused it, trying to find another way out of the building. Both exits where blocked off however and she couldn't find any others. She considered breaking a window and climbing out but something told her that would be a bad idea. Her thoughts where interrupted as she felt the elevator halt in its ascent and the doors slid open. Naomi emerged into the small second floor room where the elevator sat, looking to her left and seeing to her relief that this door wasn't covered with vines. She walked over to it and opened it, stepping into the second floor corridor and pulling out her flashlight. The second floor was in much the same state as the others, the floor was made of the same rusted steel grid but rather than seeing the floor below through it all Naomi could see was pitch blackness aside from a few rusted pipes lying just underneath the surface. The vegetation here seemed even worse than downstairs, with a large clump of blood red plants growing from the corners and what looked like knarred roots hanging from the ceiling.

Supressing the urge to cringe Naomi made her way down the hall, keeping to the middle so as to avoid the plants growing out from either side. She aimed her flashlight at the doors along the wall to her left, recognizing the one marked 'intensive care unit' as one she and Chris had passed earlier. Curious, she moved to the door and found it opened. She looked inside, moving her flashlight about the room but seeing nothing but an empty room aside from a single hospital bed sitting in the middle of the room. Naomi approached it, noticing that the sheets where covering something underneath. She reached forwards to move them aside but paused, remembering the corpse she'd seen on her way in and did not wish to repeat the experience. However curiosity soon got the better of her and she shifted the sheets aside to peek under.

A hand dropped out from under them and dangled off the side, causing Naomi to jump backwards in fright, shutting off her flashlight in panic. After a few seconds Naomi turned the flashlight back on and trained it on the hand, noticing the soft shine the plastic gave off and the joints at the wrist and elbow. She breathed a sigh of relief as she realised it was just a life-sized mannequin and not a real person after all. She moved forwards and pulled the sheets aside, revealing the doll underneath. It was bald and its face was scratched and deformed. A large gash was cut across its chest, revealing its hollowed out torso. Naomi stared at the doll for a minute, wondering what something like this would be doing in a hospital. She shined her flashlight into the hole and noticed something inside, a note of some kind. She made to reach in and get it but the gash was far too small for her to be able to fit her hand through.

She heaved a sigh and turned to leave, stepping back out into the hallway. She considered trying some of the other doors but most of them where covered with the same plant life that barred her exit downstairs. The only other one she could see was the door leading to the 'operating prep room', a room which had been practically empty when she had entered it earlier. She crossed over to it nonetheless and opened the door. Almost immediately her phone came to life again, causing her to jump as she cast her light about to try and find the source. However a few quick sweeps around the room revealed nothing in sight. Naomi was about to leave when another noise came to her ears, a noise that sounded like the wheel of an old bicycle that was in desperate need of oiling spinning freely in mind air. Naomi cast about again, walking a few paces into the room to try and find the source of the noise. Whatever was making it seemed to be circling around the room, but Naomi could still not see what was making it. Her panic began to rise again as the noise drew closer and she desperately waved the light around to try and see what was making the noise.

Whatever it was would be right on top of her within moments but she still couldn't see a thing.

"Agh!"

Naomi cried out in pain and dropped to one knee, her flashlight flying from her hand and rolling to the side as she grabbed her now bleeding ankle. Something had run past her and taken a swipe at her leg. Naomi looked up as the flashlight rolled along and the beam of light passed by something large and shiny that scuttled out of sight before she could make out what it was, the bicycle noise following it as it did so. Naomi quickly snatched up her light and trained it on the floor, having to supress a gasp of horror as she saw what had been making the noise: A cockroach, as big a small dog was crawling around on the floor, its back was slick and shiny and it had a large pair of mandibles that where stained red at the end. The bug turned, making its way towards Naomi once more, its legs making a sickening scuttle noise and its mandibles scraping together, causing the rusted squeak Naomi had heard before. Naomi dodged sideways but the bug followed her, moving fast across the blood stained floor.

It made a swipe at Naomi's leg but she raised it into the air quickly as the bug passed, attempting to bring it down on the creature but missing as it scurried past. Naomi pulled out the handgun and aimed it at the bug as it began to circle the room once more, firing three shots which all went wide, punching tiny holes in the walls and floor as the bug sped past. It charged again and Naomi panicked, swinging her foot forwards and managing to hit the creature as it tried to bite her again. The bug sailed through the air and smacked into the wall, falling onto its back and waving its legs uselessly in the air.

Naomi cringed at the sight of it and raised her gun at it, emptying the last few bullets into it until all she heard was the soft click of an empty barrel. The bug screamed in pain, a scream that no insect should ever be able to make, as dark blood poured from its underside and its movements slowed and finally stopped. Naomi sank to her knees as her phone went silent, taking deep breaths to try and calm down from the encounter. She turned her attention to her wounded ankle, finding that the cut was mercifully shallow but was still bleeding badly. She retrieved some of the left over bandages from her satchel and wrapped them around the wound, standing up slowly and testing her leg to see if it would still work. It hurt to move but the pain was bearable at least.

Naomi cast her flashlight around the room once more, spotting something on the floor in the corner. She moved over and picked it up, identifying it as a pair of tweezers. An idea came over her suddenly and she quickly left the room, moving back over into the 'intensive care unit'. The dummy still lay on the bed, its eyeless face staring up at the ceiling. Naomi took out the tweezers and moved closer, reaching into the crack in the mannequin's chest and pulling out the crumpled piece of paper lying inside.

The note was made of some kind of heavy paper and was old and yellowing, the edges looked burnt and upon opening it Naomi noted the handwritten text and aged looking writing used, some of which was smudged and worn, making it unreadable. Down in the bottom right corner, a small image caught her eye, a circle with arcane symbols surrounding it and a strange upside-down 'Y' in the middle, three more symbols dotted around it. Naomi looked down at the stone hanging around her neck, noting that it had the exact same symbol in the middle of the circle. Now intrigued by the strange piece of paper, she began to read:

'_The / Sameal / gateway to paradise. Created from the blood of a sinner and the tears of a victim it will /travel to and / individual's world of dreams and carry out the will of Samael…'_

The rest of the words where smudged badly and illegible aside from the odd letter and so Naomi placed the paper in her satchel, turning to leave. She had just put her hand on the doorknob when a loud scream made her jump. The scream had come from behind her and she whirled around, expecting to see another monster in the room with her. However she didn't see anything, that is until she looked back at the bed to see that the mannequin had been torn in half, its legs still on the bed while its torso lay on the ground beside it. Now extremely unnerved, Naomi quickly backed out of the doorway, slamming it closed behind her and holding it shut while she waited for her heart rate to slow down again.

She now wanted more than ever to be out of this nightmarish hospital and back into reality; she'd had more than she could take already. She crossed the hall and went to open the door leading to the other half of the floor, intending to take the stairs back down and try and prise open the entrance, thinking she'd rip the vines from the walls if she had to. However she saw to her dismay that this door too was broken and no amount of pushing or pulling did anything to open it.

"Crap," she muttered, resting her head against the door and hitting it weakly "This can't be real. This is all just some screwed up nightmare."

She sank to her knees, staring at the stained metal beneath her.

"Wake up," she muttered "Please just wake up. Wake up damnit!"

She punched the wall in frustration, a fresh wave of pain making its way down her arm as she did so and she cradled her bruised knuckles, trying not to cry from rage and pain.

She sat there for another minute or so, still swearing under her breath as she tried to make sense of the insanity around her. A soft creak made her jump, followed by the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Naomi didn't look up as they approached, however, and remained in her curled over position, fearing that yet another monster was about to make its presence known. She clumsily reached into her pocket for Chris' handgun, forgetting that it was empty. The footsteps reached the corner and she quickly whirled around, aiming her flashlight down the hall and raising the gun.

"Sunnova..!"

The man stumbled back, covering his eyes with his arm which also held a similar handgun. Naomi's panic subsided when she saw it wasn't a monster, in fact this person seemed vaguely familiar somehow: He wore a plain black T-shirt with a black sweatband around his left wrist and three plastic bracelets around the other, his tattered grey cargo pants where done up with a black belt that hung from the buckle and dangled at his side and he had a pair of heavy dark boots just visible. The man took his arm away from his face and Naomi saw a mane of what had once been neat black hair, but now was ragged and messy, contrasted by a pair of bright blue eyes.

"Thank god," the man sighed "And here I thought you were another monster."

Naomi didn't bother to recount her own suspicions about the person before her.

"You…You where that guy on the train," she managed to say after finding her voice.

The man looked at her and nodded.

"What happened," Naomi said quickly, getting to her feet "I woke up and found the place empty and all this fog and…"

The man shook his head, frowning and Naomi noticed a small, silver piercing on his chin.

"No idea," he said "I just got up to go to the bathroom and…"

He scratched his head, a puzzled expression coming across him.

"I just kinda…Passed out," he shrugged "I got this really bad headache and when I came to the place was deserted."

"Oh," Naomi replied, sounding somewhat disappointed that he offered no real answer.

"But this…You're seeing this right?" The man said, gesturing at the plant-covered walls and the metal grating beneath them.

Naomi nodded slowly. The man shook his head again, looking baffled.

"I just thought this place was abandoned for whatever reason, but now…" He paused again "I thought I was going crazy at first."

He looked back up at Naomi.

"Naomi, right?" He said.

"Yeah," Naomi nodded, not wanting to admit she'd forgotten the man's name already.

"Well…I'm Allen in case you forgot," he said.

A sudden idea hit Naomi and she looked up at Allen expectantly.

"Um…You haven't seen a guy with blond hair and a brown jacket in here have you?" She asked.

Allen shook his head: "First person I found in here was you…Well, not counting the weird nurse things."

Naomi looked dejected and returned the handgun to her pocket, eyeing Allen's briefly.

"Hey, don't worry about this," Allen said, raising both hands in surrender "I know how to use it and I'm certainly not gonna use it on you, so you can relax."

Naomi nodded, but didn't reply.

"You were looking for a friend of yours, weren't you?" She asked.

"Yeah," Allen replied "Wesk. I thought he was here but given the shit that's happened…"

Naomi suddenly remembered the name, Wesker Raven; she'd seen it on a set of papers in the hospital earlier.

"Err…" She began "I found some papers earlier; they said he'd been transferred to Cedar Grove or something."

Allen raised an eyebrow: "Cedar Grove Sanitarium?" He questioned "Man, that's practically on the other side of town, and I haven't even found a way out of _here_ yet."

"Well, there might be something on the third floor that can help," Naomi suggested "I haven't even been up there yet. At the very least we might be able to take the stairs back down to the first floor."

Allen scratched his head and shrugged.

"Well, worth a try I guess," he said.

Relieved to finally have some company that wasn't either crazy or trying to kill her, Naomi followed Allen back down the hall and the pair entered the elevator.

"Here goes nothing," Allen said, pressing the button for the third floor.


End file.
